
ittg of t|e Corner ^toite 



OF 



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miUBLlBUET €#LL£^-^' 



S®¥SMIIKti 1, b^:(:.o 



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CELEBRATION 



T 



ON 



THE SIXTIETH ANJN^IVERSART 



or THE FOUJfDATlON OF 




'0iUlll* 



ADDRESSES AND A POEM, 



I 



ON LAYING THB 






COMER STONE OF A M¥ EDIFICE. 



PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS. 




O/ v*. 



(A MIDDLEBURY : 

PRINTED AT THE REGISTER BOOK AND JOB OFFICE. 

1860. 






NOTICE. 

..naen. of the .oUege, to s. t.e. In print, tW 1>- ^^^^^; ,, 

• +i,ot railed for tbe celebration on the first of JNOTemoer, 
ptirpose. The occasion that callea lor xue ^ 

sufficiently explained in the several performances, 

Middlebury, Nov. 20th, I860* 



I 



f^-> 



ITapg t|e tf orner finite. 



REMARKS OF PRESIDENT LABAREE. 

Ladies and Gentlemen — We have assembled to perform an 
iateresting ceremony; to lay the corner stone of a new edifice for 
Middlebury College. . The occasion may not seem to call for any 
special observance, because such events are by no means uncommon 
in our country at the present time ; churches, hospitals, literary in- 
stitutions, or public edifices of some kind are so frequently erected, 
that they attract no particular attention. But however common in 
the wide world around, they have not been frequent with us, and 
we have therefore deemed it proper to celebrate the occasion with a 
little ceremony and appropriate literary exercises. This is the 
fourth time that such an event has occurred in the history of our 
Iniititution, but the present is invested with more than usual inter- 
est from a very pleasing coincidence : the legislative act creating 
Middlebury College, and the Charter, investing it with rights, 
powers and privileges, bear date November 1, 1800, and therefore 
our College is just three- score years old to-day. Is it not fitting, 
then, that we should commemmorate this anniversary of Alma 
Mater, who is still so full of vigor, elasticity and hope, that she 
feels all the buoyancy of youth, prepares to commence life aneWj 
and to lay foundations for many years to come ? 

In laying the corner stone of an edifice, there is no law, written 
or traditional, no authority from history or custom, that prescribes 
the manner of the ceremony, or the particular position that the 



stone must occupy. It has sometimes been placed on the top of the 
wall near che roof, and again in the centre of the front wall, and 
yet again on the foundation wall. Some even maintain, strange as 
it may appear, that a foundation corner stone ought to be placed at 
the corner of the foundatian. We happen to be of that opinion, 
and therefore we place this stone here, at the north-west corner, in 
the foundation of the proposed edifice. Please notice particularly 
the position that the stone is to occupy. Does it not look as if the 
place was made for the stone and the stone for the place. There is 
a solid ledge of rock, extending wide, and running deep — it may 
be to the centre of the earth. May it not be one of the old pillars 
of creation, coming up here near the surface, and kindly offering 
its broad shoulder, as a firm resting place for the massive stone 
structure here to be erected? We have then been anticipated, an 
architect has been here before us, the foundations of our College 
were laid long ago. If hereafter the inquiry is made as of old, 
" Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the 
corn3r stone thereof? tell if thou hast understanding." We may 
reply with reverence, the Great Architect of nature has done it, 
He prepared these foundations, He laid the corner stone. On such 
a basis it is surely safe for us to build. Here then we lay this 
corner stone. And is it not well chosen, just the thing to lie here 
and bear the weight of two walls? Its large proportions, its com- 
pact texture, its cheerful air of patient endurance, mark it for a 
service of no comrr'on honor and responsibility. Some philosophers 
talk much of the Jitness of things : is not here a pertinent illus- 
tration ? The foundation, a solid rock, from centre to circumference, 
and rock is to be the material of the walls, of which this corner 
stone is a fair specimen. Will any believe that a building with 
such a foundation and of such 'materials will be insecure ? The 
floods cannot undermine it, unless they first wash away the founda- 
tions of the earth. Nor can the winds demolish it without pro- 
ducing a convulsion that shall shake the solid world. No, neither 
the wisdom of man nor the industry of man ever prepared a more 
fitting, more enduring, more perfect foundation on which to con- 
igtruct a public edifice, than this which is made ready at our handa. 



5 

Nature has not only been propitious in furnishing an immoveable 
basis for our College, she has prepared for us this charming site, so 
well fitted for the varied purposes of a literary institution. I refer 
not merely to its seclusion from the noise and bustle of business, 
nor to the invigorating atmosphere "which moves among these valleys 
and swells over these hills, but to the cheerful, exhilirating pros- 
pect that meets the eye as it looks forth from this place. A gentle- 
man of varied culture, whose opinion is authority on such subjects, 
standing on an eminence near us, and taking into view mountain 
and valley, hill and dale, forest and fieM, north, south, east and west, 
pronounced it, for sublimity and varied beauty, one of the finest 
prospects he had ever seen. But the scene needs no endorsers, it 
speaks for itself. Notice in the east, that vast amphitheatre of 
mountains, extending in a wide sweep from north-west to south- 
west, presenting in general outline a pleasing uniformity, but in the 
filling of the picture, an agreeable variety, where " hills peep o'er 
hills." covered with verdant fields and towering forests. Our wes- 
tern view is bounded by the bold and lofty Adirondacks, with fur- 
rowed sides and serrated crests, stretching onward, as far as the eye 
can reach, towards the north pole. Then^ to give a chastened so- 
briety to the view, the eye falls upon yonder cemetery, with its 
thickening tombs, and its funeral monuments, that the hand of 
affection has reared to the loved, the great and the good, and sug- 
gests this needful lesson : by what a frail, uncertain tenure, do we 
hold all earthly joys and earthly possessions, friends, wisdom and 
wealth. 

If scenery and surroundings are important auxiliaries in the 
work of education, then have the Faculty of-Middlebury College j 
many valuable helpers in training mind. 

We have said that our College^ 60 years old to day. When 
we call to mind the ancient and venerable Institutions of the Old 
World, the Universities of Paris, Oxford, Bologna, which count 
their years by hundreds, our Institution of three score years seems 
but in its childhood; but compared with the Colleges of our country, 
ours ranks among the oldest. Of the 150 Colleges and Universities 
now existing in the United States, Middlebury College was, in 



t 

cbronological order, the 26th. In the 17th century, there were but 
three Institutions of the kind established, Harvard in 1636, Wil- 
liam and Mary in 1692, and Yale in ITOO. In the 18th century 
and before the Revolution, only 6 ; after the Revolution and before 
the close of the century, 17; of which Middlebury was the last, 
<jhartered just two months before the end of the century. During 
the first half of the present century, more than 100 were organized. 
So many new ones have arisen that our College seems to be thrown 
back into a remote antiquity. 

There is some misunderstanding and occasionally perhaps a little 
misrepresentation respecting the origin and early history of Middle- 
bury College. Leaving then the oratory, the^sentiment and the 
poetry to the young gentlemen who are to follow me, I ask your 
brief attention to a few historical tacts, connected with the origin of 
Collegiate Institutions in this State. The early history of Colleges 
in Vermont, like that of civil government, is peculiar, unique, it has 
no paralled in the whole country. I think it is not generally known 
that Dartmouth College was the first Institution of the kind in this 
Commonwealth. Many of the inhabitants in the eastern part of 
New Hampshire desired to form a political connection with Ver- 
mont, and accordingly our General Assembly extended its jurisdic- 
tion over several townships on the eastern bank of Connecticut 
River, including Hanover, the seat of Dartmouth College, and voted, 
at the request of the President and Trustees, to take that Institu- 
tion under its care.* Soon, however, this connection with those 
townships was dissolved, Connecticut River established as the boun- 
dary, and Vermont was left again without a College. 

Such friendly relations had been established between the Presi- 
dent of Dartmouth College and the General Assembly of Vermont, 

*Ia June, 1778, the General Assemblj of Vermont, met at Bennington, and 
passed the following votes in relation to Dartmouth College. Extracts trom the 
Journal. 1. *' Voted to take the petition of the Rev. Dr. VVheelock into consider- 
fition. 2. Voted to take the incorporate! University of Dartmouth under the pat- 
ronage of this State. 3. Voted, that the Rev. Dr. Eleazar Wheelock be appointed 
and commissioned as a justice ot the peace for said incorporated Society. 4. Voted, 
that the Trustees of Dartmouth College have power to choose or nominate an as- 
■B'istant justice to the Rev. E. Wheelock, D. D." — SLade's State Papers^ p, 273. 



7 

that on hia petition a tract or township of land in this State, was 
granted to that Institution, and was called Wheelock, in honor of 
its President. The Trustees were so much encouraged bj the suc- 
cess of this application, that they kindly offered to relieve the 
authorities of our State from all further care and responsibility in 
respect to the higher departments of education, provided they should 
receive a suitable consideration ; that is, provided the lands that 
had been set apart in Vermont for the use of Academies, and a 
University, and for other purposes, should be sequestered to the /Use 
.of the said corporation. This application was not successful, but 
it seems to have produced this good result ; it called forth inquiry, 
discussion and the interchange of views among the friends of col- 
legiate education, and led to the conclusion, that Vermont, though 
young and small and poor^ was yet old enough and large enough, 
and rich enough, to have an Institution of its own. 

In 1791, the year in which Vermont was received into the 
Union, the Legislature resolved that a College or University 
should be established^ and then the question arose, in what part of 
the State it should be located. It seems that the Institution was 
put up at auction, and offered to the highest bidder. The State had 
been thoroughly canvassed to ascertain what town or County would 
promise the most liberal support to the prospective University, and 
it appeared that Burlington offered to raise <£5650, of which one 
individual pledged £4000, and that no other town had made so large 
a bid. Accordingly the location was fixed at Burlington, though 
Rutland received a large number of votes. Middlebury was not a 
competitor. — Thus the University was chartered and located. Years 
passed on but no University appeared ; the gentlemen who had 
made the most liberal offer towards the endowment, for some reason 
failed to fulfil his engagement, and the Trustees could not, or did 
not improve the charter, and it was supposed that they had relin- 
quished the purpose of erecting a College at Burlington. 

The urgent need of such an Institution in Western Vermont, was 
felt by many intelligent gentlemen in this part of the State, and at 
length a few liberal minded, large hearted men of Middlebury, en- 
couraged by persons of wisdom and experience in and out of the 



8 

State, determined to take measures to establish a College in Mid- 
dlebury. Their names should be familiar to us all. Many en- 
gaged in the work, but five a'Ssumed the principal responsibility, 
viz : Painter, Storrs, Chipman, Miller and Matthews. 

The early history of our College is intimately connected with that 
of the Addison County Grammar School, and to that Institution I 
must therefore briefly allude. In 1797 a charter was granted for 
a Grammar School and certain lands assigned to it, " provided that 
the people of Middlebury and vicinity shall build and finish a good 
and sufficient House for the Grammar School of the value of $1000, 
by the next stated session of the Legislature." Passed Nov. 8th 
1797. 

The corporation thus created, consisting of the five gentlemen 
above named, immediately organized, and took measures to obtain 
funds for the building. I hold in my hand the result of their ef- 
forts, — a subscription, containing 85 names, with sums annexed 
varying from $12,50 to $350,00, amounting in the aggregate to 
$4150. A large and convenient building was erected in 1798 
which met the conditions of the charter, and yonder it stands, 62 
years old and a very comely edifice even now. — In 1799 Mr. Jere- 
miah At water, a tutor in Yale College, was elected Principal of the 
Grammar School, and he continued in that office several years. 
During the same year (1799,) application was made by the gentle- 
men before named and others for a College charter — but for some 
cause the request was postponed for one year. In 1800 the act of 
incorporation was passed, and the charter issued. — By the charter 
Mr. Atwater was made President of the College, though he 
continued Principal of the Grammar School until 1805. Seldom 
has any aspirant to literary honors been called to sustain, -such nu- 
merous, complex, and almost incompatible relations to an Institution 
of learning, as was this young President of Middlebury College. 
No professor was elected until 1806. Mr. Atwater was therefore 
President, professors and principal of the Grammar School ; and I 
presume, though I find no record of the fact, yet reasoning from 
analogy, I presume, he was also agent for the collection of funds. 
In his literary labors of instruction, he was aided by a tutor, and if 



9 

circumstances required, hj a second tutor. The faculty was small 
the number of students small, and the salaries not very large. The 
most determined advocate of low wages for schoolmasters, could not 
have had the heart to ask the President and Tutor^ if they would 
not take a little less. The salary of the former was $450, that of 
the latter $200. The first class graduated in 1802, and was com- 
posed of one individual. The College, now fairly launched, spread 
its sails to the breeze. Some have supposed that this Institution 
was established in opposition to the University, but it appears from 
these statements, that there was no University to oppose, unless the 
record of an Act on the Statute book, and a Charter on parchment 
constitute a University. No, the founders of Middlebury College 
engaged in this good work, because there was no literary institution 
in Vermont suited to meet the higher educational wants of the peo- 
ple. Soon indeed the University began to show signs of life, and 
shortly after, set forth in its literary career, two years behind the 
College, and since that period, they have run in parallel lines. 

Whatever regrets may be felt or expressed that two Collegiate 
Institutions should exist in such proximity, neither has occasion to 
^' ask pardon for having been born." They have each a legitimate 
right to exist. The College should not complain of the University 
for an awaking from its long slumbers and putting forth vital energies; 
its perfect right to life and action can neither be denied nor ques- 
tioned. Nor should the University complain of the College for in- 
nocently mistaking a sleep of nine years, for that fatal sleep " which 
knows no waking." These Institutions have existed side by side 
for sixty years, and they will doubtless exist for sixty years to come, 
yea, and prosper too, we hope. Sure we are that Middlebury Col- 
lege has before it* a prosperous future. The enlargement of its 
boundaries which we commence on this, its 60th birth-day, and that 
massive, immovable foundation prepared to receive the new structure, 
we accept as auspicious omens, indicating alike progress and pros- 
perity, solidity and stability. 

On occasions of laying a corner-stone it is common, I believe, for 
a church, a society or a literary institution to make a declaration of 
sentiments ; if it be the inauguration of an enterprise altogether new, 
2' 



10 

to announce the purpose and design of the edifice, the principles and 
practices which will govern or mark its future course of action ; if 
it be only the extension of an institution, whose principles are known, 
then to. declare what changes, if any, are to be made in principles, 
plans or policy. On these point we have but few utterances to 
make ; no new views to proclaim, no innovations to propose, no im- 
portant changes to advocate. 

The Institution has existed for three score years, under four dis- 
tinct College administrations, embracing more than 20 Professors 
and 100 Trustees, in the midst of communities often agitated and 
convulsed with earnest controversies in social, political and religious 
questions, yet has it pursued an even, uniform, policy disturbed by no 
discordant views and no conflicting theories. Its principles of educa- 
tion, its methods of forming character have been substantially the same 
during its entire history ; they have never been adjusted to the 
ever changing phases of human philosophy, nor have they been un- 
settled by the noisy clamor of pretended reformers in education. 
Oar system is established on the basis of sound common sense and 
the revealed law of God ; its practical workings are guided, and 
when necessary modified, not by human fancies and theoretic ab- 
stractions, but by well considered, and well attested experience. 
We hold that it will be the aim of right education always and every 
where to cultivate all the powers of the intellect in due proportion ; 
that while mental culture is a duty as well as a source of enjoyment 
to the individual, it is, at the same time, a powerful instrument with 
which he may elevate or debase his fellow men, and is, therefore, to 
be regarded with apprehension, unless directed by a conscience, en- 
lightened by Revelation ; that that education is •seriously defective, 
which has exclusive regard to the intellect, and therefore the relations 
of man to his fellow men and to God and the duties arising from these 
relations, must be embraced in every right system of human culture ; 
and that the educator who has the true idea of his high vocation, 
will prepare his pupils not merely for self admiration, and inactive 
repose in the exclusive enjoyment of their acquisition and culture, 
but for active, useful exertion in the cause of our common humanity. 

We believe that the government of an Institution should be kind 



11 

and parental, but firm and steady, that no more exactions should be 
made than are necessary for the good of the individual, and of the 
associated community, and no greater indulgence granted than is com- 
patible with good order and progress in study. The art of self-govern- 
ment is one of the high and important ends of education ; it should be 
the first lesson inculcated by the teacher, and when thoroughly learned 
by his pupils, it will save him the unpleasant necessity of frequent 
appeals to law and penalty. If students will govern themselves by 
all means let them do it. 

These principles and methods have now been tested by an expe- 
rience of 60 years. Our record is in history, we cannot recall the 
past, if we would; it is a witness for or against us. Let that history 
be carefully, candidly perused and we will cheerfully abide its ver- 
dict. It will pronounce, we are confident, that no College in the 
country, in proportion to its number of graduates, has furnished for 
the State, the Church, the Nation and the World, more distinguished, 
more capable, or more useful men, than has jMiddlebury College ; 
it will affirm that no College has sent into the world, fewer men, 
who have dishonored their friends or their Almi Mater : and it will 
show, we are persuaded, that no College can produce a fairer record 
in respect to the order, industry and manly bearing of its students. 

The success of the Institution is to be attributed mainly, we think, 
•to three causes. 

I. The character of the material on which the forces of educa- 
tion are here exerted. We refer not merely to the efiect produced 
upon both body and mind, by a hardy climate, mountain scenery, 
temperate habits and freedom from undue excitement, but especially 
to the fact, that a large proportion of the young men who resort to 
Middlebury College, are capable of estimating the value of an ed- 
ucation, and they come with a distinct obj ect in view, and fixed de- 
termination to make the most of their time and advantages. 

II. Then our system of education, by its direct and practical 
character, its aims to produce a high and generous manhood, is 
well adapted to guide young men onward and upward to deeds of 
usefulness and honor. 

III. The third cause we find in the comparative sraallness of 



12 

our classes. ' It is admitted in some of our large Colleges tliat 
many are expected to fail, both in scliolaiship and character, and the 
expectation usually becomes reality ; yet it is claimed that this loss 
finds ample compensation in the superior excellence of those who 
succeed. We have no such method of computing profit and loss. 
We believe that every student, who is worthy of a place in Col- 
lege, is capable of making an honorable and useful man, and that 
it is our duty as teachers and guardians of youth, to strengthen the 
weak, stimulate the indolent, encourage the desponding, and reform 
the erring ; and we despair of none, until we are convinced, by fair 
experiment, that College is not the place for them. Such attention 
to individual culture, is scarcely possible, where the number of stu- 
dents is very large. Small Colleges have, no doubt, their disadvan- 
tao-es ;*it is a very common complaint, I know, that it costs toa 
much to sustain them. We do not claim that they are an economy 
of money, but we do maintain that they are an economy of men 
and of mind, and which is the more important saving, it surelj'- is 
not difficult for wise men to determine. 

We have made brief allusion to the past, now what of the future ? 
This day will be in some respects, an era in our history — our in- 
creasing numbers have made it necessary to erect a new edifice. 
Shall we copy from the past or shall we make advance ? We 
believe in progress, and therefore we design to construct a building 
somewhat more inviting in its external appearance, and more con- 
venient in its interior arrangements, than any which have preceded 
it. So would we have improvement mark our progress at ever step ; 
not in architecture alone, but our grounds should become more and 
more adorned, our libraries and other facilities for instruction in- 
creased, our methods made more perfect, our aims and views more 
elevated ; we would have our whole history marked, from decade to 
decade, by a progressive christian civilization. This will be the 
aim, I am sure, of the guardians of the College ; this I know is the 
desire of the Faculty of Instruction. But the reputation of a Lit- 
erary Institution and its actual capabilities for usefulness, depend, 
in no small degree, upon the character and conduct of the young 
men, who resort to it for instruction. To you then, Young Gentle- 



13 

men of the Institution, I appeal, and invite your co-operation in this 
good work of enlarging and perfecting the influence of Middlebury 
College. Should you meet, as I am sure you -will, this desire and 
this effort for progress* on the part of the Corporation and Faculty, 
by a corresponding purpose and endeavor, to become thorough in 
scholorship, faithful in every duty, and manly in your whole deport- 
mant, then, though we may not excel other Institutions in number, 
in wealth, or in educational facilities, we may present to them and to 
the world, a bright and respected example of a College, highly 
nseful, well regulated and wisely progressive. 



u 



-A.DDJRE1SS 



BY BRAINERD KELLOGG, Tutor. 

Sixty years ago, this, the first of November, as you have already 
been told, Middlebury College was chartered by the Legislature of 
Vermont, and by that act, on that day, was brought into sub- 
stantial being. 

It was a puny, sickly child, as most children who ripen into ath- 
letic adults, are in their infancy , I believe, scantily ^nursed and on 
thin diet yet under the regimen of a stern discipline, cradled with 
an abundance of spare room, for years, in the wooden building below 
at the foot of the park. Two decades or less, after its birth, the 
child, then a youth, burst his swaddling bands, his incunabula^ 
and robed in his toga praetexta, forsook his cradle at the ba§e of 
the hill, and made his home first in one and afterwards in both these 
buildings on its summit. To-day the hitherto child throws ofi" this 
also, the badge of his childhood and dons the toga virilis, as an 
earnest that the boy of 1800 has passed through the years of his 
minority, and reached vigorous manhood in 1860. 

You will all agree with me I am sure, that one's natal day is 
not always the most eventful day in his history, or the one most 
worthy of commemoration. There are times, are there not. Ladies 
and Gentlemen, in the lives of individuals and not less in that of 
things, when, as it were, the coil of an old nature is shuffled off and a 
new one is assumed by them, when a fresh influx of power is taken in 
— when their vitality blossoms out into richer and nobler forms, that 



15 

make the day which witnesses this transformation worthier of mem- 
ory than any which has gone before it? What, for example, are all 
the years of the germination and patient growth of the century plant, 
in comparison with the hour when it suddenly shoots up into its 
single flower?- The day in which the boy attains his majority and 
comes into actual ownership of his brawn and his brain, is a prouder 
day for him, I trow; than any one of the twenty one years which 
antedate it. And the 4th of July, when in spirit, at least, our 
country took from her neck the yoke of the mother land, and 
emarged from a colonial life into a life of independence, we all 
think merits national celebration, though we scarcely remember the 
days in which the seed from the old world was blown over, caught 
and took root at Plymouth, and on the banks of the James. 

To-day, Middiebury College has laid the corner stone of her new 
building; by no other language could she so emphatically tell you 
of her lusty life and her vigor, as when she thus lengthens her cords 
and streno-thens her stakes ; no other oracle could be so tangible a 
prophecy of a glorious future jet in store for her. I need not tell 
you that her sons do not care to conceal from you their joy and 
rejoicing at this ; it is meet, they feel, that we should make merry 
and be glad — in the ceremonies of the day, and in your presence 
assisting in them, there is, then, a propriety obvious to the dullest, 
and needing neither defence nor apology. The circumstances of 
the hour suggest a topic which it would be folly in me to disregard. 
Will you for a while forget Lincoln and the approaching election, 
and ■ brood with me over Middiebury College, past and prospective? 

All along during the past three-fifths of the nineteenth century, 
while our country has been enacting her wonderful history, multi- 
plying over and again her area, her wealth, her population, her 
institutions religious and educational, her varied resources and her 
busy life, this College has been silently *at work, impressing herself 
with a power increasing as the number and years of her sons have 
increased, upon every department of our social life as a people. It 
is a thought vrhich is something other than a merely literal sense, 
every alumnus of the College may take to himself, viz : had it not 
been for his Alma Mater, no profession in which educated men 



16 

engage, would be as complete as it is ; our country, indeed, could 
not be what it is to day. For this, like her sister institutions, is 
one of the many arteries which carry the life blood of a pure educa- 
tion out from the fountain of educated mind, and through myriad 
ducts and capillaries, meeting in endless interlacings and oscula- 
tions, form over all the body of society a nutrient net work which 
feeds its life and its growth and ministers to its health. The work 
of the College is blended with that of all similar agencies ; you can- 
not disentangle her thread from the web woven by them all, just as 
you cannot separate the waters of Otter Creek from those of the 
million other rivers, when all have intermingled in the great basin 
of the ocean, just as you cannot unravel one of those sunbeams, 
and pluck out any of the colors which blend and interlace and lose 
their individuality in the whole, yet it was none the less distinct 
and personal, and her own, at the starting, and is none the less effi- 
cient an entity in the aggregate, for that reason. I am persuaded, 
men and women of Middlebury, that those who live within sight of 
her weather-cock, and the sound ot her bell, are those who most 
misjudge a College, look at her through concave rather than con- 
vex, or even plane, lenses. Paradoxical as it may seem and is in optics, 
it is nevertheless true in the transferred sense in which I use it, that 
the institution subtends a smaller visual angle to you who are near her 
than to those who look upon her from a distance. That a prophet is not 
without honor save in his own country partially explains this, but 
a deeper reason for it lies in this, that a daily familiarity with the 
clanking machinery of the College withdraws your attention from 
the power working through this machinery, and blinds you to her 
true nature and the results achieved by her. You hear her bells, 
you see the procession of her students marching to recitation or 
meals, you meet them in your parlors, your stores and at your tables, 
you see them as they file into your churches and hear them when 
on anniversaries they address you, occasionally some peccadillo of 
which one is guilty, reaches your ears and to you, when suggested, 
the College means just this, and nothing more. Her expression, sum 
total, is a hundred youth, more or less, in different stages of develop- 
ment, vibrating between their boarding houses on the one hand 



17 

and their private or recitation rooms on the other, no wonder if you 
cannot forget this daily vision as in panorama it passes before you. 
that the College seems to you a little thing — a cheap, feeble in- 
strumentality. A heavy firm in business doesn't express itself in 
the goods which lie in bales in its warehouse, or paraded on its 
shelves, if you would find what k its capital, add to this petty in- 
ventory its ready money, its bills receivable, its bonds, its mort- 
gages, its bank stock, its investments in personal property and 
landed estate, its monopoly of the trade, its credit, its skill, it& 
hands, its brain to direct them — just so you must look beyond her 
Students and Faculty, which, as it were, are only her goods in 
sight and estimate her investments^ would you measure the capital 
of the College and guage her work aright ? And in what callinfy, 
I pray you, has she not an interest valid and increasing ? Her 
property is not so much money as men, not matter to be handled 
and transferred and inherited, but mind to be felt. It may make 
but an indifferent show upon your census lists and tax rolls — busi- 
ness men may not be able to foot it up — it is not quoted under the 
head of '' prices current," for it is above price save as an Infinite 
Jehovah may aprize it — for it lies in that power embodied always 
and every where in educated mind — a power which men cannot 
guage but which guages men — a power in whose hands men and 
money and things are toys and foot-balls — a power which in the do- 
main of Letters, in Theology, Law, Medicine, Agriculture, the 
Sciences, Government, Instruction, any where, everywhere, is felt 
as an influence shaping things about it — giving tone and volume to 
public opinion and leaving behind it always a rich deposit of good. 
This, in part, is Middlebury College, this is what we mean when, on 
such an occasion as the present, we speak of the College. Have 
you then seen it, do you see it in the students deploying before you, 
in the machinery at work here on College Hill? Ah! no; for 
the College is not located here in Middlebury especially, it is 
wherever her sons are, goes where they go, and impresses herself 
through them on the endless and endlessly multiplied, lines of cause 
and effect in matter and, above all, in mind. I repeat it, then, 
you who live nearest the College are most prone to acquire narrow 
3 



18 

views of the College since it is so easy to let the present and the 
visible supplant, in thought, that which is invisible, though it be 
many fold more efficient and enduring. 

We live so much in a world of maarnitudes it is not strange that 
we are constantly using terms which imply size or the want of it. 
We say of this, it is great, of that, it is small, of the other, it i^ 
medium in size. No one misunderstands us, though, in strictest 
accuracy,all such talk is a blunder. Things are great or small, at the 
same time great and small, according to the magnitude of that with 
which we compare them. Gulliver, you know, was a Titan to the Lili- 
putians, but you remember that to the Brobdingnagians he was less 
than a Liliputian himself, and many with us have the happy con- 
ceit of thinking themselves great, because they measure themselves 
by their inferiors, while the world, more wise, reverses this decision 
of the lower court in reversing the standard by which they arc 
judged. We can thus, in speaking of things which have real 
dimensions — bulk — speak intelligibly only as we imply a certain 
standard of comparison understood by others — -we have no right to 
U33 these terms at all when we talk of that which is so intangible 
and immeasurable in its nature and being as a College has been 
seen to be. Who, forsooth, are we that we shall assume to take up 
human lives, deeds, thoughts, mental power — the essence of a Col- 
lege — and weigh them in themselves, weigh them as stimulators to 
the growth of others, weigh them in all the light and heavy trains 
of influence which they start and keep in ceaseless motion — each 
influence in turn begetting other influences and so on forever — 
weigh them in the work which they thus accomplish in the world, 
and then, placing one over against another, say, that this is the 
greater and that, the lesser. Vv^ho of you dare tell me that the 
giving of the W^idow's two mites has not prompted to more benev- 
olence in the world than all the homilies and bequests that have 
followed from that day to this, or dare contradict me if I assert it. 
The Catalogue of Middlebury College is not quite as formidable in 
its array of names as a City Directory, and yec no one can truth- 
fully compare this with any sister institution that Las even a mul- 
tiple of her students, and say of one that its the larger and of the 



19 

other, it is the smaller. For the true terms of the comparison are 
all unknown, no algebraist can get at their values, nor will he, ever, 
until disclosed to him and the congregated universe in that day 
when everything hidden to mortal ken shall be brought out into 
light. But the one thought which I would impress upon my audi- 
ence to day, is, that in educating mind, especially in the formative 
period of its youth, there is no agency which, with the least show 
of propriety, can be called small. A cambric needle can pry apart 
the gates of life as well as a Paixhan ball can demolish them — ^just 
so upon the hinge of a word — a grasp of the hand — a mute tear — 
human souls freighted with their destinies, are forever swinging. 
Let us linger a moment upon this idea of education. The noblest 
work of the Creator is man, not his body for, for aught I know, a 
butterfly or a honeysuckle may rival that in texture and in mech- 
anism but his mind and its mysterious marriage with the body. 
Body, matter, grows by robbing other matter, abstracting its sub- 
stance from other bodies. the sum total of substance not at all affect- 
ed by its growth but remaining a constant quantity — mind grows 
without causing diminution in anything so that the sum total of 
mind is always a variable. Body changes its nature, its torm, as 
in decomposition — mind, higher than matter, never changes save as 
it takes to itself new relations to things, new capacities, new growths. 
Its food is knowledge, influences, truth — it gathers them all up into 
itself, though, like the oil in the miracle, as much remains as before, 
and in its wondrous transmutation makes mind of them all — passing 
thus from a possible power, to one in fact. What a worth Heaven 
stamps upon it and what a dignity it gives to every agency at work 
training it, when we remember that God himself, as if jealous of 
every other instrumentality, takes into his own hands, preeminently, 
the education of it. Look at it and see with what a rank he clothes 
this work and every agent whom He allows to cooperate with Him. 
lie first puts into us an insatiable desire to know — to learn — and then 
exhausts his ingenuity, Himself, even, in spurring it with motives and 
satisfying it with objects. He places us in this Museum of nature, 
subordinates everything in it to our mastery, makes winds, tides, 
currents, germination, growth, decay, all things, teach us so that 



20 

we find '* tongues in trees, books in the running brooks and sermons 
in stones'^ and then, as if for fear that all this were not enough, He 
makes the pleasure we feel in learning to be the keenest that is 
possible to our experience. As though not the possession but the 
pursuit, of truth were . paramount in importance, He never, if you 
will but notice it, fully reveals only sows, here and there, hints, sug- 
gestions, of the principles which hold facts in clusters, making the tap 
roots of all our knowledge to spring from the substratum of mys- 
tery immediately beneath, piquing thus our curiosity at every turn, 
wooing us with more than Calypso charms to their pursuit — and to 
consequent growth of mind. And all -this, be it remembered. He 
does for each, for the race taken seriatim not in an aggregate — Dr. 
Nott need not limit his remark— the Almighty educated him — to 
the temperance champion John B. Gough, it is with emphasis true 
of every one of us. Snobs may affect to contemn the agencies at 
work educating mind but in the judgment of the All wise the uni- 
verse was not too spacious a laboratory and schoolroom for it and He 
Himself none too learned an instructor. But what is more es- 
pecially obvious to us is, that He makes use of bunman means like- 
wise-moves upon this mass of mind through individual minds — makes 
each in a measure, to be his neighbors' teacher but some He anoints 
to be the special interpreters of his truth, admitting them to liis 
arcana He sends them forth commissioning them to instruct their 
kind. In the true, if not the popular, sense the highest dignity He 
ever confers here, is that with which He dowers those agents and 
agencies acknowledged as colaboring with Himself in the work of 
genuine education. I am puzzled truly, to know what there is great 
anywhere within human achievement if this taking up of a deathless 
mind with all its young, unspent capabilities and budding energies 
— opening it to the light and heat and rain and dew of influences, 
truth — chasing from it the dark, dank shades of ignorance and nar- 
rowness training it to send outward and downward its roots and 
rootlets and upward its body and limbs and branches — keeping open 
and in ceaseless play, all its ducts and capillaries and countless 
breathing stomata until its fibre has grown tense, its layers compact, 
its bark rigid, its trunk burly, its arms long and supple and it can 



21 

wrestle ^Notoriously with the winds and storms of error and of evil — 
I repeat, I know not what there is great anywhere, great in itself 
great, beyond all, in its issues, if this be small. If it were wood or 
clay with which one were dealing, a blunder were of little matter, 
fire or a blow could annihilate it and a substitute would be so easy — 
if bronze or gold even, it might be recast and the mistake corrected 
but what can undo the neglect shown, what can atone for the wrong 
done, to a living, spiritual power, crippled by this neglect, poisoned 
by this wrong and made by it to infect every current of influence 
that pulsates from it with a virus that shows itself in worse than 
plague spots, upon all who come within its circle. We talk, but 
how idly, of agencies that have in training hundreds of youth but 
I tell you it goes beyond all human computation to estimate the 
worth, the scope, of that which educates aright even one — in the 
true balancing of books it will be found that no outlay upon even 
such a little agency, as we term it, equals the revenue that all down 
the track of ages and throughout the aeons of eternity shall be 
harvested from it. 

Let me glean the fruit of this train of remark, as a thank offer- 
ing to my subject. If I have not been prating foolishly, then the 
true inquiry is, not whether Middlebury College graduates as many 
students yearly as Yale or Harvard, nor whether her history is so 
old as to be legendary, but whether she does her work as well, 
whether she does it well. Compare, if you will, their graduates, 
man with man, their courses and methods of instruction if you 
please, but not their respective endowments nor the number of their 
alumni, and do not attempt the measurement of what I have called 
their essential magnitudes, for, as has been said, none but a mind of 
infinite grasp can comprehend the the smallest agency at work up- 
on mind. Now, the great need of the world to-day, is what it 
has been — educated talent ; the world stands ready to pay the 
price of any position for it, so that Napoleon's "what has he 
done?"^^'- 0,116 c'est quHl a faitV^ — where is he in the worlds 
thought and place, is the best test of man's native power, but more 
especially of the quality of the discipline through which he has 
passed. If Middlebury College has done a good work and done it 



22 ■ ' ■ 

well, you will see that fact best expressed in the posts of honor and 
power to which her sons have been called. And certes, they are 
not all, not all, in the rank and file of the world's battallions — 
some lead, some command. Of her more than 1000 graduates, 
many are, of course^ yet too young to have distinguished them- 
selves, yet she numbers among her alumni sixteen Presidents of 
Colleges — more than fifty Professors — eighty Principals of High 
Schools and Academies — two United States Senators, and fourteen 
members of the Lower House of Congress — five Governors of 
States, (six counting the Paulo Post Future Governor at Burling- 
ton ) — one Justice of the United States Bench — a goodly number of 
Judges of Supreme and other State Courts — members of Legisla- 
tures ad lib — Lawyers and Clergymen prominent at the Bar and 
Pulpit in all the large cities of New England, and, indeed, of the 
whole Union, superadded to that effective corps of men in these two 
and in the other, professions, whose names will never be seen in 
the published histories of their Country — who seldom get even 
into the daily or weekly newspapers, but whose deeds and faithful 
lives and influences emenating from them, filling np, day by day, 
and year by year, the great volume of unwritten history, are re- 
corded upon the thinking, throbbing heart and brain of society 
about them, in characters that shall be sharp in their outline when 
the slabs of Nineveh, aye, and the rocky pages of the geologic 
eras have been worn smooth and illegible under the tramp and 
the tread of the ages. It is no boast, but proper self respect, only, 
to make the College say of herself, that she is not ashamed of her 
record — she courts rather than avoids, comparison in this respect, 
with sister institutions. Indeed had I not a too intimate acquain- 
tance with a certain member of '58, I should be half tempted to 
say that if one wishes to set out, with a good momentum, on the 
road to eminence, he has but to take his start from the Halls of 
Middlebury. It is something — even a New Yorker must confess 
it — that the College is located in staid, virtuous Vermont, more,that 
she crowns so pleasant a Hill in the quiet village of Middlebury, 
of which the least that can be said, is, that her air is bracing, her 
soil, affectionate, and her society, elevating, and where these two 



23 

mountain ranges over yonder and yonder, are worth as much as 
two Professors to those who daily talk with them, still the College 
must take to herself much, nay, most, of the credit of her work. 
Her Faculties have not always been the most brilliant of men, but 
they have been all the better for it — her present Eaculty — well. 
Ladies and Gentlemen, bating Tutors, a synomym, you know, for 
" present company " — her present Faculty, like Massachusetts, 
needs no eulogy. Perhaps, like Dr. Johnson, they cannot quite 
furnish their pupils brains and ideas too, but I think that those stu- 
dents who have the former already, will bear me witness that they 
know how to supply as well as evoke, the latter. 

It is plain, too, that to individual members, it is a spur in the 
sides of their intent that the Classes are no larger than they are, 
each receiving thus, his full modicum of attention, the certainty 
of a frequent and the chance of a constant, recitation, goading the 
most laggard to studious preparation. 

Never forgetting that if one would bring even a knife blade to a 
keen cutting edge he can do so only by diminishing its width, its 
weight, its strength — the drift of instruction here is not to make 
students sharp, critical only, but to give them breadth as well as 
penetration of view, comprehensiveness not less than acumen, to 
their grasp of mind — facts are regarded as of worth only as they 
stand as indexes of principles and, like guides, conduct to them. 

It seems tome that the course, as well as method, of instruction 
here, is eminently one of common sense. The classics pursued, are 
the purest extant — her mathematics combine well the practical with 
the theoretic — her chemistry and botany are brought down to latest 
dates — her political economy, the cream of works in political ethics, 
chimes in accordantly with the swelling tone of the thought of to- 
day, and her philosophy is neither the mysticism of Coleridge, nor 
the transcendentalism of Kant and the Rationalistic School, but 
the sturdy iron- linked metaphysics of that Prince of Philosophers, 
Sir William Hamilton, one of whose sentences strikes you like a 
bullet, and a page like an avalanche. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Middlebury College has outlived two gen- 
erations of men, she is 60 years old to-day, but she isn't in her 



24 

dotage — there isn't a gray lock on her temples^ she shows neither age 
in her look, nor decripitude in her step or her stoop, on the con- 
trary she was never so ful] of lusty life and of warm, healthy blood 
to feed it, as to-day. The strangest thing about such an Institution 
is, that while its founders and supporters die, it survives, living on 
through the years and the centuries, flourishing in an immortal 
vigor. Their law of life is always a law of growth, to it Middle- 
bury College conforms — do you doubt it ? how do you interpret 
yonder Corner stone ? To me it is indubitable evidence of it. When 
you find the apartments in your house growing few and growing 
small, haven't you the best possible proof that your family is thriv- 
ingr — increasino: in numbers and in size of members ? Individual 
men don't build greater when they have already room enough, are 
not thirty-three individual men banded into a corporate body as 
wise as one, and as likely not to act without a sufficiency of motive ? 
The logic, then, of the new building is just this — the soul of the 
College has grown to large for the body which now encases it — 
there is no longer room to give free play to the expanding life of 
the Institution — another building must be erected immediately to 
meet real necessities. And, believe me, it is an omen which every 
true friend of the College greets with a shout even if it suggests, 
aye, exacts of him, the duty of making an investment in it. 

There has been a feeling current these latter years all through 
the valley of Champlain and likewise in Eastern Vermont, that the 
true interests of education demanded the union of the two Colleges — 
this and the one at Burlington, and twice, attempts have been made 
to merge the two into one, transferring this to Burlington or bring- 
ing that to Middlebury, but twice these attempts have been fruit- 
less — the oil and the water couldn't or wouldn't, unite. All who 
who know the history of these negotiations, will bear me witness 
that this institution acted in good faith and in a wish to yield to 
public sentiment which seemed to call for their union — not the 
slightest breath of censure can be blown in the face of Middlebury 
College that to day there are two kindred institutions within an 
hour's ride of each other, doing what one larger College might do 
with a. less expenditure of power and means. But correct me Men 



25 

and Women of Middlebury, if I am wrong when I say that the 
desire for blending these two institutions is every day weakening 
its already feeble hold upon the popular mind. The leaders may 
plan fusion to their hearts' content but what do the people now a 
days think of it. A recent State election has uttered their voice 
upon this point and some wiseacres are so presumptuous as to tell 
us that next Tuesday will echo that voice with thundering rever- 
beration. Fusion, clearly, isn't popular in 1860, not even the 
fusion of Colleges, I think. At all events the best bulletin yet 
issued, that there is to be no fusion between these two Institutions, 
* is yonder Corner-stone — no such fusion at least, as shall transfer 
Middlebury to Burlington. Mahomet may come to the Mountain 
if he wishes — though hitherto he has shown himself strangely un- 
willing to meet even half way — but the Mountain isn't going to 
Mahomet ; so, at least. / understand the bulletin, our honored 
President has just issued, for surely it would be foolish to bind a 
new monster building around its feet if it intended to take so long 
and so painful a tramp. 

I cannot quite take leave of my subject and of you, my kind 
audience, without a word of earnest appeal. Were I standing at 
this moment, before the congregated alumni of Middlebury College, 
and could estimate, even approximately, the work, the good, which 
she has already done — could forecast what she might do if only 
they would give her the ability, might not my trespass be forgiven 
if, burdened with my theme, I lost sight of their age and my own 
youth, and besought them to unloose every band which now shack- 
les her, to make straight and smooth the path before her, to gird her 
with greater power that she might realize the mission, which, in 
vision, her founders foresaw more than half a century ago. Build- 
ings, however necessary, are not all a College needs, they will stand 
here on this hill, mute satirists, pointing, how keenly, the folly of 
their builders, unless you send hither your sons in swarms and 
dower her more and still more abundantly with means. If, as has 
been said, this, like each sister Institution, is an srlery bearing out 
and distributing all over and all through the body of society, the 
life blood of a pure education incarnated in educated men, to com- 
" " 4 



26 

plete the circulation— as well as my figure— there must be a net 
work of veins bringing back supplies to feed it and give it its legit- 
imate work, these veins are none other than individual influences — • 
these individuals are none other than you and the friends of the 
College, in general. In the new building that is to be, you have 
an additional pledge, that whatever the College may have been in 
the pastj it is not to be in the future, a wayward drifting craft, ex- 
posed to a random blow from an iceberg of adverse circumstances, 
and likely at any moment to drop, like the fated Pacific, to the 
unknown depths below. You can wield your influence in her favor, 
you can help to fill out her quota of Professorships and add to her 
endowment, you can send hither your sons and your friends, and 
you can do it all in the full certainty that the College is to be as 
stable in her perpetuity as the rock out yonder, on whose broad, 
bare shoulders "ancient as the sun," is to rest the mammoth 
weight of her new edifice. 

In New England, and in Yermont of all New England, one 
looks for the spirit which nourishes Colleges. That pitiable delusion 
that a College education unstrings one for the rude, rough touches of 
life, has little currency — -thank God — in the Green Mountain State. 
And you do not need to be told that Yermont cannot keep her rank 
as the Banner State of the thirty-three, in all that constitutes the 
virtue and intelligence of her citizens, without the direct and potent 
influence of her Colleges ; I am persuaded, then, that the interests 
and destiny of the Institution cannot rest in better hands than yours. 

There need be no bitter strife between Abraham and Lot, there 
are fields large and well watered enough for both Middlebury and 
Burlington, let each in the spirit of friends go up and possess them. 
If only you, if her sons, if her friends generally, will be but true 
to their trust, and to her, I need summon here to-day, no Sybil to 
read you the future of Middlebury College. As her sons increase 
and the circles of their influence are widening, the territory whence 
she is to glean her rich harvest sheaves, is multiplying in extent 
and may be made to yi^ld rich and still richer ofierings,year by year. 
Only let her friends — and standing where I do, may I not venture 
the prediction that they will— 'only let her friends match her growth 



27 

bj a corresponding growth of their interest in her, and their labors 
for her, andtthe occasion which calls us together to-day, will be a 
glad omen prophetic of the years that yet await her — years in 
which, like the tree in royal vision, she shall grow and wax strong, 
rooting herself deep and yet deeper into the heart of the people of 
Vermont, as she has already into her soil, and extending the pro- 
tection of her branches over whatever arts and callings and interests 
dear alike to right and to truth, may be attracted by her kindly 
shade to nestle and to thrive beneath it. 



28 



POEM 

BY E. IIIBBAKD PHELPS, 

As round the warm hearth of their own native home; 

The boys and the girls of the family come, 

And with love for that home which no stranger can feel, 

Leave the plow or the workshop, the loom or the wheel. 

The old ones their work and the young ones their play, 

To honor their mother's returning birth day; 

So we, a strong band of affectionate brothers. 

Have gathered to honor the kindest of mothers, 

Who to-day has attained a right hearty three score, 

With a prospect immortal presented in store. 

Yes, our Alma Mater, to her we would sing. 

And all our oblations and praises would bring. 

When we anxiously look in her honest old face 

To discover the wrinkles, or find some sad trace 

Of the cruel advances of old Father Time, 

We are forced to conclude that she's " right in her prime;'' 

For though sixty fair summers 'have flown o'er her head, 

And sixty cold winters have numbered their dead, 

Still, healthy and active, the dame may be seen, 

As rosy and fair as a girl of sixteen, 

And like all the young ladies and some, I dare say, 

Whose eyes are quite dim and whose hair is quite gray^ 






29 
To keep up with the fashions, those dreadful disorders, 
She's extending her skirts and enlarging her borders. 
Though a few years ago she had quite a sick spell, 
And hints were thrown out that she could'nt get well, 
Yet when all the facts of the case had been shown. 
And the cause of her illness was clearly made known, 
Then her noble sons' came, from all countries and climes, 
With their hearts filled with love, and their pockets wich dimes, 
Which last mentioned fact so revived the old lady 
That she soon looked as blooming and bright as May-day ; 
And ever since then it is perfectly plain 
That the honest old lady has been on the gain. 

You remember a story which Saxe once related, 

How, a few years ago, she came nigh being mated 

To a handsome young gent, who with manner quite bland 

Walked up to the lady and offered his hand ; 

How, charmed with his figure and pleasing address, 

She almost concluded to answer him '^ yes !" 

But how she at last, although deeply afiected, 

W^ith praiseworthy firmness his offer rejected. 

All this you have heard, and I simply would say, 

That the lady is happy and thankful to-day, 

To think that she took just the course that she did, 

And preserved unalloyed the fair name of '' Old Midd." 

And now that I've mentioned the fact of her health, 
What else can I do than to speak of her wealth ? 
Not the wealth hoarded up in her iron bound coffers, 
For of this we're quite sure 'tis but little she offers, 
Not the wealth which she holds in convertible funds, 
But the genuine wealth in her notable sons. 
Yes, the sons of "Old Midd " are a glorious throng, 
Whose names and whose deeds should be hallowed in song. 
In all parts of the nation where'er you may go, 
'Neath a tropical sun or in regions of snow, 



In the bright golden west or where orient skies 
Shed such beauty as falls from a maiden's soft eyes. 
There the son of '' Old Midd," has a home and a wife, 
And is doubtless enjoying the good things of life. 
Por though humble and poor as they oft are by birth, 
Without money or friends on the face of the Earth, 
'Tis a noteworthy fact, and it runs in the breed, 
That wh»ate'er they attempt they are sure to succeed ; 
For go where he will, and do what he may, 
A fion of " Old Midd " will make everything" jtay. 
Should his love for the Truth, or the length of his jaw, 
Constrain him to follow the practice of law. 
With his Coke and his Blackstone he emigrates West, 
Finds a place where '' the legal " will flourish the best, 
Hires a " 7 by 9 " attic and runs out his shingle, 
Determined to live, if he has to live single ; 
Puts a quill o'er his ear, and puts on a long face, 
And sits down in his office, and waits for a case. 
The next that we hear, in a very few years- 
As a star in the Senate our lawyer appears. 
While his many friends think that the prospect is fair 
Of his some day obtaining the presidents chair. 

But should duty to God and a sin fallen race 

Constrain him to herald the news of free grace. 

To illumine the regions enveloped in night 

With the gospel's celestial, all glorious light ; 

With his heart in the work and his life in his hand, 

He carries the Truth to some sin-stricken land ; 

In the jungles and deserts he raises the cross, 

And though tortured and sick, yet he counts it no loss 

If by teaching forgiveness and infinite loye, 

He shall fit one more soul for those mansions above. 

But perhaps he may feel 'tis his lot to assist 

In converting the heathen who dwell in our midst; 



31 

With his eloquent words, his faith and his zeal, 
He softens the heart, though like obdurate steel ; 
Settles down in some place at a moderate fee, 
Having gained by his labors the title D. D., 
Till wearied and worn with his duties below, 
With faith in the future he meets his last foe. 

Many, ay, many who once gathered here 

In the haunts of Earth's children no longer appear ! 

They have journeyed afar to the land of the dead. 

And now sleep their last sleep in their cold narrow bed. 

Many whose voices once joyous and loud 

Rang the merriest peal in the whole merry crowd, 

Many whose step was once nimble and light, 

And whose eyes lit with joy were once sparkling and bright, 

Now rest in the churchyard, beneath the green sward, 

Though their spirits have flown to their final reward. 

As we glance for a moment far back in the past, 
And review all her sons, from the first to the last. 
We find many a noble, illustrious name. 
Carved in letters of light on the Temple of Fame. 
There is Beman, the sentinel still at his post. 
From the watch towers of Zion arousing the host, 
Like a veteran soldier, all wounded and scarred, 
With his armor still on, he stands firmly on guard; 
Though a noble old age has deep furrowed his brow. 
And many cold winters have crowned it with snow. 
Yet his warm heart, unchilled by the rigors of life, 
Still beats to be first in the heavenly strife. 
Still longs to be first in the glorious fight 
For the downfall of wrong and the triumph of right. 
And Slade, an undaunted defender of Truth, 
A friend of the slave, and a guardian of youth; 
As a ruler of State he was faithtul and just, 
Asa patron of arts ever true to his trust, 



32 

For his God and his country he did what he could; 

Seeking nothing beside the reward of the good. 

And Rojce, a firm leader in every good cause, 

A pillar of Justice supporting the laws, 

A man and a statesman of true honest worfh, 

Devoting his life to the land of his birth. 

Still as downward we glance through the vista of years 

No name more resplendent than Henshaw appears; 

In theology ever the soundest and best ; 

As a preacher with clearness and earnestness blest ; 

As a pastor his flock he with jealously led; 

As a bishop a wise man, in heart and in head. 

Next my eye falls on Lamed, a bright morning star, 
Sending forth its pure light o'er the nation afar. 
Till, suddenly fading, its glorious ray 
Becomes merged in the light of an eternal day. 
And Wilcox, a genius whose heaven-bestowed fire 
In the shadow of Death was too soon to expire. 
With a frame that was fragile and feeble from birth, 
And a mind too angelic and pure for this Earth, 
His soul grew impatient and fought for its crown 
Till it battered the walls of its tenement down. 

I3ut among all the sons of our fair Alma Mater 
No life was more honored, no name can be greater 
Than that name ever glowing in letters of light, 
The name never dying, the great Silas Wright; 
Like a huge promontory whose bold rocky form 
Rises gloomy and grand o'er the tempest and storm. 
So Wright, the firm champion and son of the North, * 
With footstep undaunted stood gallantly forth. 
And with sternness unflinching and firm as the rock, 
'Mid the conflict of parties resisted the shock. 
Possessing a mind ever subtle and clear, 
And a purpose which never knew failure nor fear. 



33 

He pressed on plucking honor and fame as he rose. 
Leaving far in the rear all his rivals and foes, 
Till when he felt certain that soon he should clasp 
The highest of honors, it fell from his grasp ; 
JFor Death, the Avenger, had leveled his dart. 
And with unerring aim it had pierced his great heart. 

There is Olin, whose mind like the streams mighty tide 

Moved in majesty on, it its channel so wide ; 

£o transparent and pure that its depth was concealed, 

So deep that its grand flow was never revealed. 

And Thompson, a mind ever changing and bright, 

Like the Auroral splendor, a fair northern light, 

First tinting the skj with a delicate flush, 

As the moon when it welcomes the sun with a blush. 

Then morning in grandeur and blazing afar 

Like the death dealing charge of two armies at war. 

There is Owen, still delving for classical lore. 

As a miner would dig for more tangible ore; 

In the minds of all students his memory lurks, 

Por he's known, if at all, by his numerous works ; 

beyond these, however, we care not to seek, 

Though we're sure that he must be a ''regular Greek." 

And Conant, a scholar, a preacher and sage, 

He too is unfolding the classical page. 

And Nelson, a judge and a jurist, whose name 

Is coupled with justice as one and the same. 

And b'mith, a true type of the genuine man, 

In the battle of Truth ever leading the van. 

Still another there is, to whose memory dear 

We would tender the silent regard of a tear. 

Too the scholar and Christian, the talented Keith, 

To pure for this world of confusion and death, 

3 he soul bows in homage, so pure was his life. 

So sad, yet so free from Earth's grovelling strife. 



34 

But I must desist, lest your interest flag, 

But not till I speak of our family wag : 

Yes, like all other families we have a wit. 

Whom 'twould be quite a blunder if I should omit ; 

I refer to our Saxe, a right jolly good fellow, 

'Neath whose jokes an old fogy would surely grow mellow ; 

Besides he's a poet, and all of his rhyme, 

Like the tinkling of bells, has a musical chime. 

Not heavy nor grating, but wanton and gay. 

Like the heart of a child on a merry spring day ; 

And besides reputation, 'tis said he's earned money 

By tickling the people with something that's funny ; 

In short he's the jolliest chap in the crowd. 

Of whom Alma Mater may justly be proud. 

But should I bring forward each notable son, 

The glorious list I have hardly begun ; 

I might speak of Mallory, Lawrence and Town, 

Of Eaton and Coolidge, all men of renown^ 

Of Meacham and Howard, Foot, Buell and Chase, 

And others whose names Time can never efface, 

But I will be done, with the hope and the prayer 

That the prospects of '' Midd " may be ever as fair, 

That the star of her glory may never decline, 

But brighter and fairer continue to shine. 

May the stone, which to-day we have laid in its placO; 

Be the noble foundation, the unyielding base 

Of a structure whose walls through all ages shall stand, 

The bulwarks of Truth, the defense of the land ; 

A fortress of strength to the State and the world, 

From which every error in shame shall be hurled ; 

A temple, where wisdom shall ever maintain 

Her sway undisputed, her glorious reign ; 

Whose worthy high priests shall in purity teach 

Both the freedom of thought and the freedom of speech ; 

Where justice and honor and Truth shall abide 

While the cycles of Time in their harmony glide. 



85 

ODE 

BY J. E. PIERCE. 

Our Alma Mater sing, 

And let her praises ring 

O'er sea and land. 

Who, strong with threescore years 

Her massive walls uprears 

Glorious among her peers — 

Long may she stand ! 

Thou guardian of the free, 

Bulwark of liberty, 

And foe of wrong ; 

We found thee on the lock. 

And hid thee stand and mock 

Time, and the tempests shock, 

Forever strong ! 

" Stand !" till thy sons, sent forth 
To purify the earth, 
Their work have done, 
Till Truth's victorious car 
Shall thunder from afar, 
Till ends the glorious war, 
With victory won ! 

But though this corner stone, 
May, ages hence, sink down 
Within the earth, 
Thy sons shall keep thy name, 
And spread with loud acclaim 
Thy high, immortal fame, 
And matchless worth ! 



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